Alice's blessing dress

Alice turns 10 months old today and so I decided that it was about time to finally post about her blessing dress. I did buy a pattern a long time ago, yes... but I never opened it. I decided to just wing it like I usually do. I did find an old basic pattern for a sleeve and made that work. It was my first successful time doing sleeves. Even though it's risky to just wing it, it's how I love to sew. And I LOVE how this turned out. It has that classic period look to it and is full of details.

I made it longer than her legs so that when you held her in your arms the length draped over your arm.

                               

In the left photo you can see the tiny white eyelet lace that I hand stitched onto her sleeve. Also, a close-up of the crocheted lace on the gathered empire waist. 

In the right photo you can see the little flower stitch around the neckline. You can also see the sweet puckered top of the sleeves.

The sleeves are the only things not lined.

I chose 3 flat buttons that would be as comfortable for Alice as could be.

You can see the crocheted lace also on the back. It didn't quite meet up perfectly, but I don't mind so much. 

 

You can see the lining in the left picture. As silly as it sounds, I actually felt more capable in lining the dress than making a pair of bloomers {since I had never done bloomers before}, and she needed something. After spending all the time making the dress I was not going to have the pattern on her diaper show through the light fabric. No way.

On the right you can see how much I loved that crocheted lace. Combining the crocheted lace with the eyelet lace on the bottom of the gown really gave it that look I was going for.

Hooray! And now that I've finally posted about her blessing dress I can tuck it away in her special container for her to keep.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing it.